Madras HC stays construction of school on temple land

MADURAI: The Madras high court on Tuesday granted an interim injunction restraining the construction of a school on land belonging to a temple in Kanyakumari district.
A division bench of justice R Subramanian and justice L Victoria Gowri passed the order on a public interest litigation filed by T K Ramesh Kumar.
The petitioner stated that the more than 1,000-year-old Arulmigu Kandansastha temple is situated at Kappiyarai village in the district. He stated that he was the previous trustee of the temple.
He stated that the land parcels belonging to the temple were wrongly classified as government poramboke temple. Taking advantage of the wrong classification, the authorities have now changed the classification of the land and are planning to construct a school on the temple land. He stated that the HR and CE department officials had requested the revenue officials to reclassify the land. However, no steps were taken.
Though he had submitted a representation to the authorities seeking not to construct a school, no steps were taken. Hence, he moved the HC Madurai bench.